


one who flies and one who falls

by ellisfifellis



Category: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén
Genre: Breakfast, Fluff, Herald romance spoilers, Other, Spoilers, brief mention of the heartbreak incident, nonbinary sidestep but vague enough to apply to anyone, thank you for the snippets malin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 06:33:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17782397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellisfifellis/pseuds/ellisfifellis
Summary: "It’s difficult to let someone else feel you when you’ve never really felt yourself."x x x x xSidestep learns how to focus on the physical world.





	one who flies and one who falls

It’s difficult to let someone else feel you when you’ve never really felt yourself.

  
This body was never designed to have a personality, let alone one like yours, so desperate to be free and untethered from… everything. Discovering you could lift your consciousness from this physical form felt unreal, at first, and then as you continued to do it, and continued to grow stronger, it became a distraction from the way you didn’t fit into your skin or into society. Your puppet wasn’t quite right either, though. You weren’t sure if anything would be.

  
But Daniel touches you like you belong. It’s Sidestep that’s not in this body, not you. He drifts his fingers over your scars and asks about them. He doesn’t ignore your tattoos, but he doesn’t idle over them either. His lips kiss your face like it couldn’t be anyone else’s. It’s grounding, more than anything ever has been. And it’s real. Even when you’re caught up in your thoughts or his thoughts, the sensation of his hands on your skin and your skin under his hands is always there, bringing you back to your body, to what’s here and tangible.

  
When you get too deep, you touch his emotions with yours, and that feeling of detachment from yourself is so foreign to him that he knows immediately it belongs to you. He takes your face in his hands, runs his thumbs over your cheekbones and kisses you with a promise. _I won’t let you deal with this alone._ You’ve never had a net under you before. It’s always been a freefall; escaping the Farm, stepping from Heartbreak’s window, sinking deeper and deeper into yourself. But Danny would catch you. No matter what.

“Hey,” he says softly in the grey hours of the morning. You woke up and didn’t move at all for fear of disturbing his peaceful expression. The pillow under your head is damp from tears you barely noticed. “Hey. I’m here. I’m here. You’re okay.” He wraps an arm around you, wipes the wetness from your face with his thumbs, kisses your forehead. It makes you cry harder.

  
When he makes you breakfast, he doesn’t wear a shirt, so you wear his. The smell drifts around you like thoughts in a crowd, but it’s comforting, not isolating; you suppose having his feelings waft towards you like the scent of the pancakes might have something to do with that as well. _Will they like this? I hope they do. I need to make the coffee…_

Not one to stand around, you do it yourself. He has some expensive kind you’ve never seen before and an actual French press, so you make it the fancy way, and he kisses you on the cheek for, well, reading his mind. There’s no music playing, no sounds of cars or people passing, just the two of you and the sizzle of a pan and the whistle of a kettle. It’s peaceful. And private.

  
You eat at a table near the window, looking out at the sky. You’ve never been that comfortable with heights, but now you have a flier with you. He seems nervous every time you glance downwards at the faraway ground below, so you hold his hand and aim a gentle smile at him. Who told him what Heartbreak made you do? Ortega, probably. Was it right after the incident? Did Daniel ask? Was it after you mentioned you were going to go out with him? You could dig around, but it doesn’t really matter. He knows, but he’s not directly asking about it, or being overprotective, he’s just worried for you. Genuinely worried. It’s… disarming, and your smile falters for a second, and then you laugh, just a little. It’s relief. When he sees it on your face, his lip quirks up, and his grip on your hand tightens, and he nudges your leg under the table with his foot.

  
His scent lingers on you, memories of his hands on you distract you, his kisses leave trails you can trace back with fingers. These are the things that keep you here. Touches, however small, that remind you that you are you, remind you that he adores you and cares for you, remind you that this is real. He is real.

  
And he won’t leave you.

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by the herald romance snippets malin posted on tumblr.
> 
> come find me on tumblr here: ([x](https://coolashellis.tumblr.com))


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